Pineapple Princesses

Pineapple Princesses began as a tribute to Ruby Borrowdale, the home economist behind the 'Golden Circle Tropical Recipe Book' tested in the Golden Circle kitchen and modified and updated in the Pineapple Princesses' test kitchens.
As Ruby said "pineapple is a versatile food" . . .
no fat, high in vitamin C and full of the flavour of Queensland sunshine. The blog continues as more and more pineapple recipes are discovered from around the world.

1. Combine the white sugar and 1½ cups water in a small
pan, bring to a simmer, add the fennel and cook for 10 minutes, until tender.
Drain, reserving 2 tbsp of the fennel water.

2. In a frying pan, heat the butter and fry the pineapple
for about 3 minutes until lightly browned. Add the brown sugar and stir gently
to create a caramel. Stir in the drained fennel and reserved fennel water,
ensuring that the caramel thoroughly coats the pineapple and fennel. Arrange
the pineapple and fennel in the base of a greased and lined 22cm-diameter cake
tin.

3. Preheat your oven to 180°C. For the cake batter, place
the flour, baking powder, ground fennel and salt in a bowl and mix to combine.
In a separate bowl, or the basin of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar
together until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then mix
through the vanilla. To this, add the dry ingredients a little at a time,
mixing at a slow speed to form a smooth batter.

4. Pour the batter over the pineapple and fennel and bake
for 35 minutes, or until the top of the cake is golden brown and a skewer
inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin, then turn
out, garnish with the reserved fennel fronds and serve with cream.

Remove the outer rind from the grapefruit and lemons and
shred very finely. Squeeze the juice from the fruits and strain through a fine
strainer. Cut up the white pith and tie it in a piece of muslin with the pips.

Place the fruit rind and juice in a bowl and add the water.
Allow to stand overnight.

Next day, place in a preserving pan with the pineapple which
has been peeled and shredded, and the bag of pips and pith. Simmer gently until
the fruit rind is quite soft – this may take 40 to 60 minutes.

Measure the fruit and liquid (first removing the muslin
bag) and to each cupful add 1 cup of sugar. Boil steadily for about 40 minutes,
or until a little will jell when tested on a cold saucer. Cool slightly before
pouring into heated jars. Seal when cold.

Tuesday, 6 February 2018

“We were living in Belltrees in the early
1970s. Chris had the school and I was the Postmistress and telephone exchange
operator. To fill the days I decided to learn to type on Chris’s portable
typewriter so I typed out the recipes I used all the time. Hence the poor
layout and misspelt words all through it!

In my book this is called a Waldorf Salad and as we know from ‘Faulty
Towers’ that can mean any combination. I don’t know where it came from but have
been making it since at least 1970 when I put it in the book” Jenny.

Monday, 22 January 2018

A fabulous
book, a study of culture through food. Roasted pineapple is delicious with tacos! Anne

“Everything fits in a tortilla: As Mexican as mariachi
music, the taco is, without a doubt, Mexico’s most popular food . . . A taco,
at its simplest, is a tortilla, filling, and salsa – the other holy trinity in
Mexico – yet when these three elements are prepared with the proper care and
ingredients, tacos can be raised to the status of haute cuisine . . . the
humble tortilla has an extraordinary capacity for adapting itself to fillings
of every possible kind – meat, vegetables, fruit, cheese – and anything placed
in a tortilla is, by definition, a taco.” Alejandro Escalante